Indirect
by Angel Bunnies
Summary: It's bad enough that Rima's boss, Mr. Scrooge, won't even give her a day off from work on Christmas (though it wasn't exactly his fault) but when her friends come to help, things get even worse. Rimahiko. Christmas one-shot.


"I'm hosting a family dinner which took weeks to prepare."

Rima nodded, knowing where this was going.

"And relatives from all over are flying here, so it's not like I can miss it."

She nods again.

"I only have five other workers, and they have important things to attend, too."

_Lucky them_, Rima thought.

"So you're the only one who can help, since you don't have anywhere to go. Normally, the store would be closed at six p.m. today, but there are _so many customers_ since this is practically the only restaurant open today."

Of course. They couldn't disappoint the customers.

"So we'd be losing a lot of money if there wasn't someone here. That's why you have to stay. Of course, you'll get paid extra today—"

"How much extra?" Rima interrupted, knowing he wouldn't get on her case about it today.

"Ten dollars more than the regular amount—no, actually, double. That's okay, right?" Her boss looked at her hopefully. Rima can tell he felt bad, but it made sense. This shop was in danger of closing down, and to be honest, Rima could use the extra money too.

"Fine," Rima nodded once more.

"I'm glad you understand."

* * *

"How can I help you?" She asked wearily, tired of taking everyone's orders, getting them all ready, and running to all the tables for people sitting at the cafe to give them the orders. (Being the only one working sure was tiring.)

Rima was broke, and her parents rarely gave her money to spend, unless it was for something necessary like school supplies or something; if the wanted anything else simply because she wanted it, she'd have to earn money for it herself. She was angsting over this when she noticed an 'Employees Needed' sign at her favorite cafe, the one with the really tasty cheesecake, and she decided that was where she wanted to work. It turned out workers were _really_ needed, so she got accepted immediately. And so she had been (mostly) happily working at Cafe Oishii for three months now.

"Did you get that?" The customer across from Rima, a man who looked like he was in his early twenties, inquired.

"Oh, I'm sorry, can you repeat that?" Rima questioned, and came back with a caramel latte. She was about to take the next order when her phone rang.

"Here you go," She handed the man his drink and answered the phone after placing the 'Be back soon. Please wait!' sign on the counter in front of her. The person first in line looked a little annoyed at this, since Rima was standing right there talking on her phone. But since she was working alone on Christmas, she could at least take one call, right? It was only fair, and Rima knew if her boss heard of it he wouldn't be mad, not today.

"Hello?"

"_Rima-tan! You don't have anything to do today, do you? Because the other Guardians don't either and Yaya was thinking we could—"_

"Actually, I'm working—"

"_Working? But it's Christmas!"_

"I know. And I'm the only one working, so I can't take a break."

"_That sucks. But don't worry! Amu-chi, Tadase, Nagi, and Yaya can help!"_

"No, that's okay—"

"_No, we're happy to do it—"_

"_NO._ Yaya, you better not come—"

"_Oh, Yaya's mom is calling her. Bye-bye!" _

_Beep._ Yaya hung up. Great._  
_

Rima sighed. She didn't want her friends to be working too, and while Amu and Yaya could probably handle writing down a few orders, Rima didn't know if she could trust her clumsy friends. Harsh, but true. Tadase might be okay, at least, and while Nagihiko would be as helpful as Tadase, he was rather annoying. (Okay, really annoying. Infuriating, actually.)

"Um…" The next customer, a girl probably around Rima's age, looked indecisive.

"What do you want?" Rima snapped, in a grouchy mood, and the girl looked frightened. "Sorry," Rima quickly apologized, resisting the urge to snicker; that would be mean, and since she was an employee, she couldn't be mean.

"Uh, a low-fat strawberry cheesecake, please," The customer said, and Rima prepared it.

"Next," Rima said after handing the girl her cake.

"Hmm, let Yaya think…" The familiar voice joked.

"Hey, since you're our friend, we can get our orders for free, right?" Nagihiko inquired, grinning. Behind him and Yaya were Amu and Tadase. How did they get here so quickly? Rima wondered if they were already outside the shop while talking to her and Yaya was lying about her mom calling her, but dismissed the thought.

"What are you doing here?" Rima questioned after making sure no one was near to hear her rude attitude. "Get out."

"Rima, we were only joking…" Amu frowned.

"Sorry, I didn't mean it that way," Rima corrected herself, not wanting to upset Amu; she saw Nagihiko fight a smile at this and shot him an icy glare before turning back to Amu. "If you really want to get something, feel free to ask."

"Actually, we came to help, Mashiro-san," Tadase said, and the others nodded.

"It's okay, I'm doing just fine." Rima put on a sugary sweet (and obviously fake) smile.

"Come on, pleeeeeasee?" Yaya begged.

"Yeah, Rima, we really want to!" Amu exclaimed.

"We won't bother you," Tadase promised.

"Yeah," Nagihiko agreed. "Please…"

Why were they all so pushy? Did they really have nothing better to do than bother her?

"You will," Rima frowned at Nagihiko, but sighed, knowing resistance would be futile. _Wasn't this peer pressure?_ She wondered to herself. Plus, Amu was starting to use her puppy eyes look that Rima admitted she couldn't resist, and Yaya's voice was starting to get more high-pitched; Rima could tell tears were going to leak out and seeing Yaya throw a tantrum was not very fun. Tadase was staring at her in that way that wasn't exactly puppy eyes but more like a disapproving _come on_ kind of look that made her feel guilty, and Nagihiko's voice was getting whiny too. (_What wonderful friends I have_, Rima thought darkly.)

"Well...let's see. I can take orders, Amu can tell them to Tadase, and Yaya can bring them to the customers if they're at a table. If they're not, she can just hand them to me," Rima commanded, proud of herself for being able to take charge.

"You forgot about me," Nagihiko stated as if Rima hadn't done that on purpose.

Rima glared at Nagihiko and he offered the same look back, prompting Amu to look at them worriedly. "Uh, Rima, I think you should let him do something...I mean, he really wants to help you too…"

"Fine, he can bring the orders to the tables, and Yaya can get them ready with Tadase instead," Rima decided, knowing she could trust Nagihiko not to drop anything on the ground; he may be irritating and fake and egotistical and a lot of other things, but sadly, Rima couldn't deny that he was extremely graceful. She wondered if it was even possible to trip him, but resisted the urge to stick her foot out and see.

"What would you like to order?" Rima asked as a family came up to them.

"Three veggie mini-sandwiches and two hot chocolates with whipped cream," the mom said, and Amu scribbled it down on the notepad I had given to her before handing it to Tadase, who showed it to Yaya before fetching the burgers. Yaya poured the already made hot chocolate into a cup and added whipped cream before putting the plastic lid on and a straw inside as Rima instructed her. Nagihiko picked up the order and went over to the table the family was sitting at and placed it there.

"Enjoy," he smiled, and the little kid sitting at the table looked at him curiously.

"Are you a girl or a boy?" She asked bluntly, and Rima snickered. She noticed that the girl's mother looked embarrassed and opened her mouth to apologize when Nagihiko shook his head and answered, "It's alright. I'm a boy."

He walked back to where the other Guardians were standing as if nothing strange had happened, and Rima tapped his shoulder. "Hey, Nagihiko, which one are you again?"

"Very funny, Rima-chan," Nagihiko rolled his eyes, and she unexpectedly giggled at this. "You know, it's nice to see you smile," Nagihiko commented.

"What? Where did that come from?" Rima questioned, suddenly embarrassed.

"Nowhere, it's just that you're always frowning and grumpy, so it's nice to see a smile on your face," Nagihiko explained. Rima frowned then, and he gently pinched the part of her cheeks near the corner of her mouth and pulled them upwards so it looked like she was smiling; though, really, Rima was pretty sure the "smile" looked funny.

"Ow," Rima mumbled although it hadn't hurt, and Nagihiko let go. She felt a blush creeping up and shook her head to clear it away. Was she really going to blush at something like this? Who was she, Amu? (No offense to Amu, of course.)

_Plus, blushing was strange, like I actually like Nagihiko or something_, Rima thought as she leaned against the counter, since there were no customers in line. She knew liking Nagihiko even just a little was absurd—how could she like someone who enjoyed irking her all the time? That just didn't make sense.

_Or, okay, maybe I am lying a little_, Rima reasoned. To tell the truth, she had admitted (in her head) some time ago that she actually did have a little crush on him; Nagihiko could be funny sometimes and he was actually pretty nice, most of the time, no matter how rude Rima was.

_But whatever; it doesn't matter._ It didn't matter, really. Rima knew Nagihiko hated her. He was probably only pretending to consider her a friend to be polite, or to please Amu and the other Guardians, since they were friends with her. After all, Rima was always mean to him, so he couldn't genuinely like her. Or, if he did, not as more than a friend. Rima had also admitted Nagihiko would never like her a while back, too, but she was okay with that. It wasn't like she'd pine after him for her whole life; that didn't happen in reality. She'd get over him soon.

After all, Kirishima had had a crush on her, but he got over it and started dating some brunette a year older than them; Rima could do the same (not the dating an older brunette part, but the getting over Nagihiko part).

"Hey, Rima, look, there's a huge crowd coming…" Amu pointed towards the door, jostling Rima out of her thoughts.

_It's actually really easy with all the Guardians helping_, Rima thought as she served customer after customer. Having five people working at a time was more than the usual three, and was actually unnecessary. The Guardians were handling the customers with ease when the dreaded happened. The dreaded meaning Nikaidou. Nikaidou, who took away Rima's best helper and Amu (okay, that might have been a little too mean since Amu was helping just as much) and left the cafe with utter chaos.

"_Hotori-kun!" _Nikaidou had greeted cheerfully when Tadase picked up. (The Guardians wondered how Nikaidou had Tadase's phone number, but Tadase simply said not to ask.)

Apparently Tadase was needed to help tutor some students ("don't ask", he said again) and so he had to leave.

There was a crash, and then Nikaidou said, "Oh,_ wait. __Uh, the other person needs to go to the hospital, so if you could bring someone, Hotori-kun...?"  
_

"Alright," Tadase said, not looking surprised...surprisingly. Nikaidou hung up, and Tadase turned to us. "Can any of you...?"

"I could," Nagihiko volunteered.

"No, it's fine, I'll go," Amu insisted.

"Really? That's great, Amu-chan," Tadase smiled, practically sparkling.

"Oh, i-it's no problem." Amu blushed and looked away. As usual, Tadase was oblivious to her blushing, and they walked out the room together.

_Oh, well, three people is still more than enough_, Rima shrugged it off. She didn't know the disaster that would occur in Amu and Tadase's wake.

* * *

"Yaya has the hot choco—AAHH!" Yaya tripped on who-knows-what while bringing an order to Nagihiko so he could bring it to the customer. Nagihiko tried in vain to save the poor drink, resulting in Yaya, Nagihiko, and the cup sprawled on the ground, Yaya's foot over Nagihiko, and hot chocolate all over the floor and partly on Yaya and Nagihiko.

A collective gasp sounded from the customers, who all instantly turned to the mess, along with an angry Rima.

"Yaya…" She growled, remembering a similar incident back in elementary school (Rima had no idea how she could still remember that) where Yaya had tripped while the Guardians were cleaning the Royal Garden and ended up on top of Nagihiko. Yaya had been holding a bucket, and due to her slip it ended up on Nagihiko's head; Rima still found that funny, although she wished there had been water in the bucket.

"Sorry about that, everything's fine," Rima assured the customers, and they hesitantly turned away. Then she turned to Yaya and Nagihiko, annoyance etched all over her face.

"I told you to be careful," She frowned at them, realizing she must sound like an angry mother but not really caring.

"Well, it was really Yaya's fault, Nagi was just trying to help," Yaya volunteered.

"I don't care. Both of you, clean that up," Rima barked, still sounding like a mom. Hopefully nothing else would go wrong, she thought as she watched Yaya bring the new cup of hot chocolate to the customer, who at least didn't seem too upset, and Yaya made her way back to where Rima and Nagihiko were (Nagihiko had just finished cleaning the mess on the floor) when...she tripped. Again, only this time Rima fell down too.

_Yaya may be clumsy, but she usually doesn't trip __**this**__ much, _Rima thought, confused. And this wasn't the first (or second) time; Yaya had been wobbling all over the place the whole day, for some reason.

"Uh, Rima-chan? Can you get off me?" Nagihiko questioned, and Rima realized she had ended up on top of him—great. At least it wasn't the other way around with Nagihiko on top of her, but this was still bad. And again, it was Yaya's fault.

Rima hastily got off of him and stood up, glaring at Yaya, who looked frightened.

"Did you do that on purpose?" The older girl questioned.

"No, actually...well, the reason Yaya's tripping a lot is, well…" Yaya took off her shoe, earning weird looks from Nagihiko and Rima, until they saw that these "shoes" were really roller skates. How could they not have noticed before?

Rima blamed Nikaidou for this whole mess because before, with Amu and Tadase helping, all Yaya had to do was help get the orders ready instead of delivering them, so Yaya didn't have to do much walking at all. Until Nikaidou took Amu and Tadase from them.

"Why?" Nagihiko asked gently, in an effort not to make Yaya any more upset. Rima had the opposite intention as she glared at her friend.

"Yaya went roller skating today and forgot to change her shoes…" Yaya sighed.

"It's alright, Yaya-chan, we all make mistakes," Nagihiko comforted her.

Rima sighed, feeling a little guilty, and told Yaya, "I guess it's fine. Just make sure not to do it again."

"Thanks a lot, Rima-tan!" Yaya instantly brightened up.

"But don't think you're off the hook. You owe me," Rima added, deciding to use this to her advantage.

Yaya opened her mouth to say something but no one but her would know what since just then, her phone rang. "Hello?"

"_Yaya, I have to go to an important meeting and your dad won't be home yet, so can you come look after Tsubasa for some time?"_ Yaya's mom asked from the other end of the line.

"Okay, mom. Yaya'll be there! Bye!" Yaya hung up after saying that (she seemed to hang up on people a lot).

"You have to go, Yaya?" Nagihiko asked, and Yaya nodded, seemed to remember something, and put on a gleeful and rather smug expression.

"I guess Yaya can't do whatever you wanted now, Rima-tan!" Yaya exclaimed.

"You're buying me a parfait tomorrow, then," Rima decided.

"Fine," Yaya pouted, then brightened up. "So I guess it's just you two then, right, Rima-tan, Nagi? Bye!"

Yaya left the cafe, and neither Rima or Nagihiko needed to state the obvious that Yaya was expecting some sort of lovey-dovey thing to happen now that they were alone—Yaya, in addition to shipping Amu with Tadase and Ikuto, also liked to pair Rima and Nagihiko together.

_Actually, it isn't really fair that Yaya does this to everyone and she isn't even paired with anyone,_ Rima thought dejectedly.

"Hmm, there aren't many people around, huh?" Nagihiko commented.

"What time is it?" Rima questioned.

"Time for you to get a wa—what?" Nagihiko seemed amused by Rima's glare at his (lame) joke, which further irritated Rima. Why did Nagihiko find it amusing, and not scary, when she was mad? Rima knew no one else was like this. "It's eight o'clock."

_Oh, so it's been two hours since my boss left,_ Rima realized.

There was a silence for some time, which was more peaceful than awkward, until Rima interrupted it. "We might as well start packing up the decorations a bit," Rima decided, since closing time was in an hour, and it wasn't like anyone would not come to the cafe just because there weren't Christmas decorations anymore.

"Alright," Nagihiko agreed.

"You take these down," Rima ordered Nagihiko, pointing to the decorative plants hanging from the ceiling above them and all around the shop. "And I'll…" Rima looked around, but the only decorations were the strange plants hanging from the ceiling, whatever they were, and some gold ribbon around the borders of the ceiling.

"Oh, yeah, you can't reach any of the decorations," Nagihiko grinned before taking down the plant hanging right above Rima and him to show that he could reach them. The plants were just barely in Nagihiko's reach, so it was a little difficult for said boy to get them down, but he could do it.

"Shut up," Rima mumbled, and heard Nagihiko chuckle.

"Hey, Rima-chan, do you know what plant this is?" Nagihiko questioned, and Rima took a closer look at the plastic plant. It had green leaves (obviously) and three red berries on it. What was that…? It did look familiar, and Rima suddenly thought she remembered.

"I know! It's poison ivy, right?" Rima inquired, pretty sure she was right.

"Poison ivy? No...don't you know, Rima-chan?" Nagihiko asked, and Rima was surprised she was wrong.

"Excuse me for not being a plant expert like you, Fujisaki," Rima mumbled. She only called him by his last name when she was mad at him, and Nagihiko knew that. Besides, how was she supposed to identify a plant like this just by looking at it?

"It's mistletoe," Nagihiko informed her. "You do know what that is?"

"Of course I do," Rima replied, feeling dumb for not knowing earlier. But then again, it wasn't _that_ easy to identify, was it? Nagihiko was a know-it-all, so it made sense that he would know, but a normal person probably wouldn't...right?

"So, are you going to kiss me now?" Nagihiko queried casually, and Rima frowned. She knew the tradition with mistletoe, of course.

"Why would I want to kiss you?" Rima scoffed. _Though, since I like him, doesn't that mean I actually __**would**__ want to—no. _Rima stopped her train of thought. Kissing Nagihiko would be gross...in fact, kissing anyone would be gross. Kissing in general is gross, Rima decided, when another idea came to her.

"Did you drink from that?" Rima gestured towards the water bottle sitting beside Nagihiko, which the boy had brought, and Nagihiko nodded. Before Nagihiko could react, Rima quickly took a sip of water from the bottle before putting it back down on the counter.

"If you were that thirsty, you could have just asked," Nagihiko seemed amused again. "Now that I think of it, I'm a little thirsty too." Nagihiko took a sip of the water when he seemed to realize something and froze, placing the bottle down. "You drank out of this…"

Rima resisted the urge to roll her eyes, since it was a bad habit, and wondered how someone who was supposedly intelligent could be so stupid sometimes. "No, duh. It's no big deal." _And it's not like I did it on purpose—okay, I kind of did._ Rima fought to control her blush, suddenly embarrassed; what if Nagihiko found out her real intention for doing what she did?

"I—" Nagihiko looked at a loss for words until he regained his composure and grinned—it was a rather mischievous grin, almost a smirk, and Rima had never seen it on goody-two-shoes Nagihiko before. "You know that's considered an indirect kiss, right?"

"I know." _Please don't let him know I like him—_

"If I didn't know any better, I would even say you _wanted_ to kiss me," Nagihiko stated._ What? He didn't know, did he? If Amu told him, I swear I'll—_

"But, you know, Rima-chan," Nagihiko continued. "I think I'd prefer a direct kiss."

—_The end_

* * *

**A/N: I would have posted this earlier, but fanfiction wouldn't let me go to my account. :/ But it's okay since it's working now! :D **

**I had no idea how to end this, and I think the ending was weird...but I always think that. XD This somehow turned out to be really long...yay? :)) And, if anyone noticed, I stole the cafe name (Cafe Oishii) from another one of my stories. (I find it hard to think of names... ;w;) Review if you want, and merry Christmas (or happy holidays)! :D**


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